GDANSK
PARTNERS
O
ver the past decade Scotland has
seen a steady influx of Polish people coming to live and work here
and most welcome they are too!
These friendly, hard-working people
have made a sizeable contribution to the
Scottish economy and, if I may say, brought
a ray of sunshine into our oft-times lacklustre service industries.
I sometimes wondered in an absentminded sort of way, though, just how they
got here. In an old Trabant driven across
Europe loaded down with mattresses,
goats and chickens? Or maybe a horsedrawn cart with pots and pans dangling off
the back? No! They come by Wizz Air, the
ultra-modern low-cost carrier that serves
most of eastern and central Europe.
Before I say anything further, I must
apologise unreservedly to any Poles who
might take offence at my utter ignorance of
their nation. Not at all familiar with the
David J. Whyte “Wizzed” his way
towards Lech Walesa International
Airport and Gdansk on Poland’s
Baltic coast to find out just what this
central European country is all about
country or culture, I really did not have a
clue what to expect when I was invited to
come and play golf there.
Golf and Poland are two words I have
never seen nor heard in the same sentence.
From the airport en route to the first golf
outing I was struck by how pleasantly wellordered and appealing everything appeared, almost Alpine in character, tidy little apartments and amicable looking people strolling in the early autumn
sunshine.
Regarding golf, I presumed I’d
be shuffling round tracks akin to our most
basic municipal. How far could this be
from the reality that now lay before me?
Sierra Golf Club is a half-hour drive from
Gdansk; the clubhouse is a citadel of fine
taste, comfort and modernity with Sky
Sports showing the latest golf tournament
and a tolerable selection of beers and
wines behind the bar.
Sierra Golf Club
AWE-INSPRING
Sierra Golf Club
Gdansk Golf and Country Club, Poland
20 The Press and Journal | Saturday, January 3, 2015
If that had created a good first impression,
the golf course was even more aweinspiring. The flagpoles were made from
the finest mahogany. Well, maybe not – but
a quality wood trimmed in brass with a
hefty feel in the hand.
The rest of the course furniture would
grace the most upmarket of upmarket
garden centres while banks of flowerbeds
and shapely shrubbery embellished the
shapely fairways. Dainty bridges crossed
water hazards and high-spouting
waterfalls gave it an Edwardian English
country estate appeal. This was a veritable
Capability Brown knockoff! After the
round we freshened up in our spaciously
modern apartments overlooking the golf
course and dined in style at the Sierra
Clubhouse.
“Maybe Sierra is a one-off," I grumbled to
myself as we drove off in search of more
Polish encounters. There are only 25 golf
courses in the entire country. We were
touring those around Gdansk near the
country’s northern coast.
This area is ideal for a short golf break,
with the courses all within around an
hour’s drive of Gdansk. You could plan as
we did to play three courses in three days.
First, though, we sampled the culture and
cuisine of the somewhat unimaginatively
named TriCity, more inspiringly called
Trjmiasto in Polish and made up of the
three adjoining urbanisations of Gdansk,
Gdynia and Sopot.
Overlooking the sandy coasts of Gdask
Bay, this is where Poles take their seaside
holidays. We strolled along gracious
avenues and beachside boulevards. Even
in late September it was warm and cheery.
In Sopot we stopped at a waterfront eatery
called Bulaj and enjoyed a cavalcade
of delicious fish dishes the likes of
which would grace the fin est Michelinstarred restaurant. I began to wonder
why Poles would ever want to leave the
place.
LABYRINTH
a package. And to polish things off, a halfThe City of Gdansk is a labyrinth of litre bottle of the purest vodka in a
mediaeval tenement buildings fronted by supermarket will only set you back a mindancient docks and a glittering new marina. numbing 4 or 5 Euros. To a Scotsman,
One of Poland's oldest cities, Gdansk has a Poland was beginning to add up.
history that stretches back a thousand
years and I was surprised to learn that one INSIGHTS
of Aberdeen’s most illustrious sons played The cultural highlight of Gdansk was a visit
to the newly-opened Solidarity Museum
a role in it.
The young Robert Gordon graduated next to the once infamous Gdansk
from Marischal College in 1689 and soon shipyards. The building, inaugurated only a
afterwards left the city to travel far and week before our visit, offers a riveting
wide, finally settling in Gdansk. Here he insight into the struggle of Lech Walesa and
started business as a merchant trader and the Polish Shipyard workers and their bid to
soon became quite wealthy. By 1692, he wrest free from Communist oppression and
was rich enough to donate a large sum of years of austerity. Their efforts ultimately
money to his old college and by 1699 he created a remarkable domino effect that
was providing low interest loans to brought down the Berlin Wall and indeed
landowners throughout Aberdeenshire. eventually Communist USSR. This is one of
Finally returning to Aberdeen in the 1720s, the best museums of its kind I' ve
he donated his considerable fortune to the encountered and worth a few hours of your
building of a hospital with the added remit
of helping educate and care for the city’s
young men. The hospital developed into
Robert Gordon's College, finally becoming
The Robert Gordon University.
You can easily imagine the young Robert
strolling round the antique streets of
Gdansk, little changed since his day.
There’s shopping on Amber Street
(actually called Mariacka Street), a narrow
conduit running from the river to the heart
of the Old Town lined with amberbejewelled shops and street sellers. Poland
is famous for these molten golden globules,
fossilised tree resin from primordial forests
now buried deep underneath the Baltic
Sea. Sizeable chunks often wash up on the
beaches. At one time amber was as cheap
as chips in Poland but nearby mines
flooded and now it’s more scarce and
significantly more expensive.
Apart from amber, Poland is remarkably
inexpensive. Let’s be blunt: it’s cheap. In
Gdansk you can buy a glass of beer for one
solitary euro. You could have something to
eat – albeit a snack – for 2 euros. A round
of golf at the ultra upmarket, super-suave
Sierra Golf Club sets you back a mere 50
euros – even cheaper if you book as part of Gdansk old town, Poland
time rather than the flying visit we had
scheduled.
Getting to golf, Sand Valley is yet another
excellent golf course that does exactly what
it says on the tin. Built on a geomorphic
basin of sand, the fairways snake and
shimmy between rivulets of bunkers. Now,
I’m generally not in favour of the term
“Inland Links”, but I have to admit
Sand Valley fits that description perfectly.
This is as challenging as any seaside setup
on the east coast of Scotland, with the added
impetus of some willfully small greens
especially on the Par 3’s that are devils to hit
and hold.
Once again, I was highly impressed with
the standard of golf course, the welcome
and the wonderful villa we had to stay in. We
dined in the nearby town of Elblag, allowing
CONTINUED / Overleaf
Sopot Beach, Poland
The Press and Journal | Saturday, January 3, 2015 21